Tsunami Generation by Submarine Mass Failure. I: Modeling, Experimental Validation, and Sensitivity Analyses

By Stephan T. Grilli, P. Watts. 2005

289 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Numerical simulations are performed with a two-dimensional (2D) fully nonlinear potential flow (FNPF) model for tsunami generation by two idealized types of submarine mass failure (SMF): underwater slides and slumps. These simulations feature rigid or deforming SMFs with a Gaussian cross section, translating down a plane slope. In each case, the SMF center of mass motion is expressed as a function of geometric, hydrodynamic, and material parameters, following a simple wavemaker formalism, and prescribed as a boundary condition in the FNPF model. Tsunami amplitudes and runup are obtained from computed free surface elevations. Model results are experimentally validated for a rigid 2D slide. Sensitivity studies are performed to estimate the effects of SMF-shape, type, and initial submergence depth—on the generated tsunamis. A strong SMF deformation during motion is shown to significantly enhance tsunami generation, particularly in the far-field. Typical slumps are shown to generate smaller tsunamis than corresponding slides. Both tsunami amplitude and runup are shown to depend strongly on initial SMF submergence depth. For the selected SMF idealized geometry, this dependence is simply expressed by power laws. Other sensitivity analyses are presented in a companion paper, and results from numerical simulations are converted into empirical curve fits predicting characteristic tsunami amplitudes as functions of nondimensional governing parameters. It should be stressed that these empirical formulas are only valid in the vicinity of the tsunami sources and, because of the complexity of the problem, many simplifications were necessary. It is further shown in the companion paper how 2D results can be modified to account for three-dimensional tsunami generation and used for quickly estimating tsunami hazard or for performing simple case studies.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Earth-Surface Processes, Geophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/605a59d14936cd00b48a4da05dbeff8f36a0e392

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Citations in the corpus

Numerical modeling of tsunami waves generated by the flank collapse of the Cumbre Vieja Volcano (La Palma, Canary Islands): Tsunami source and near field effects (2012, methodology): “…it is necessary to use a long wave propagation model that simulates dispersive effects and considering the strong nonlinearity of generated waves, one that also includes full nonlinear effects, such as FUNWAVE-TVD [e.g., Grilli and Watts, 2005;Watts et al., 2003, 2005; Enet and Grilli, 2007].”
Physical modeling of tsunamis generated by three‐dimensional deformable granular landslides (2012, background): “Previously, two dimensional landslide tsunami experiments were extensively performed in flumes with a solid block sliding down an incline [Russell, 1837, 1844; Wiegel, 1955; Law and Brebner, 1968; Wiegel et al., 1970; Kamphuis and Bowering, 1970; Slingerland and Voight, 1979; Heinrich, 1992; Watts, ”
Experimental Study of Tsunami Generation by Three-Dimensional Rigid Underwater Landslides (2007, background): “…so far have been done for two-dimensional ͑2D͒ cases, either represented by solid bodies sliding down a plane slope ͑e.g., Wiegel 1955; Iwasaki 1982; Heinrich 1992; Watts 1997, 1998, 2000; Watts et al. 2000; Grilli and Watts 2005͒, or for landslides made of granular material ͑e.g., Watts 1997;…”
Dispersion of tsunamis: does it really matter? (2013, background): “…landslides in particular, requires primitive wave models, as demonstrated for the potential La Palma tsunami (Gisler et al., 2006; Abadie et al., 2012) and the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami (Grilli and Watts, 2005; Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.”
Numerical simulation of tsunami waves generated by deformable submarine landslides (2013, methodology): “…have been employed using different levels of simplification; for example, shallow water theory (Harbitz, 1992), fully nonlinear potential flow (Grilli and Watts, 1999, 2005; Grilli et al., 2002), Boussinesq equations (Lynett and Liu, 2003; Watts et al., 2003; Fuhrman and Madsen, 2009; Zhou…”